Pretty Instinct (3 page)

“Two.” I stifle a laugh…trying desperately not to cave and tell him to grab four.

***

“Jarretttttt, I’m home!” Conner screeches the minute the door to the tour bus opens, his poor fish ricocheting off the sides of the bags from his exuberant shaking. I’m unsure why he always calls out for Jarrett first, the boys both equally good to him, both in our lives the exact same amount of time. I wonder if Rhett ever asks himself the same thing, or if it hurts his feelings? Knowing Rhett like I do, the answer is undoubtedly yes.

“There he is!” Jarrett smiles, standing from the bench seat to give him a hug. “We missed you, bud. You have a good time with your dad?” He glances over Conner’s shoulder to me as he asks. He worries too, after living through it all right by my side.

“Ask if he saw Alma,” I mouth.

“Did you see Miss Alma today, buddy?” he questions casually, my jaw clenched tight as I wait for the answer.

“Yes, she loves me. Bethy too.” My brother can contain it no longer, already over any conversation not about his pets. “See my fish?” He shoves the bags in Jarrett’s face. “The red one’s yours. You can name it if you want.”

Still behind them observing, I roll my hand, wanting Jarrett to confirm specifics. He winks, reading me like a book. “Awesome fish, dude, we’ll put them in a bowl in a sec. What’d Alma make you to eat today?”

“Grilled cheese. Rhett, Bruce the Moose, I’m home!” Jarrett and I both chuckle at Conner’s clear dismissal of any further banter. He says he saw her, and he’s back with me now, seemingly unharmed, so I guess all’s well enough for me to move on.

Jarrett leans in to conspire in his ear. “Your uncle ran to town, but Rhett’s in bed, go wake him up.”

Such a shit, sending Conner to do his dirty work.

Once he’s bouncing down the hallway to torture
anyone
in the vicinity, Jarrett sits back down and pats the spot beside him for me to take. “How bad this time?”

I flop my head on his shoulder, letting him entwine our fingers. “Not too. Short and bitterly sweet.” I tilt my head and grin mischievously up at him. “I got in a few good jabs.”

“I’d expect no less.”

“I didn’t see Alma, though, which worries me. I just wish Conner wouldn’t ask to go. I wish he’d remember why he shouldn’t
want
to go.”

“You sure about that? Maybe it’s better that he doesn’t remember. There’s a lot of bad shit stuck in my head I wish I could forget, ya feel me?” He squeezes my hand and brushes a kiss at my temple.

In a way he’s right, I don’t want Bubs to have those visions in his head, waking him up at night, confusing him. But without his recollection, and him saying it out loud, I can’t ever prove what I
know
to be true. And therefore, I can’t keep him from our father. It’s never ending, these thoughts, the internal debates on the lesser of two evils.
It’s exhausting.

Conner played soccer and football from youth to high school; our father didn’t attend a single game. He was in a garage band for almost three years; Daddy Demon never heard a single song. He didn’t give a shit about Conner before
the accident
, which I’d bet my left tit was
far
from
an accident, but now he’s hell bent on playing house with a twenty-seven-year-old man he barely even knows? I haven’t figured it out,
but I will
.

My thoughts are splintered by a nasally shriek. “Get out, you retarded freak! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I’m on my feet and down the corridor in a flash, Jarrett hot on my heels.

“Bubs? Bubs, what happened?” I ask as calmly as I can, dropping to my knees and wrapping my arms around him. He’s curled into a ball on the floor, rocking back and forth and banging clenched fists against his head. “Conner, stop,” I command, trying to restrain his arms, gasping in piercing pain when I catch his accidental elbow to the jaw.
Always the damn elbow.
“Shit,” I howl, shaking my head and rubbing it quickly before going back in. “Jarrett, help me! Rhett!”

They’re already there, caught in the flurry of commotion, one of them now flinging me out of the way so they can stop Conner from hurting himself. This time it’s my back, a sharp blow knocking the air from me as I’m tossed aside, landing against the edge of a bunk. I’ve gotten pretty tough over the years, so I take the moment to ignore the back and rub on my jaw some more, working out the ache.

Cami, our bassist and the one who’d set this catastrophe in motion, scrambles down and out of her top bunk, pulling a t-shirt over herself. “Liz, you can’t expect us to live like this! Your pervy fucking brother was creeping on me again. I don’t care what the hell’s wrong with him, I have a right to privacy!”

You live on a tour bus with four men, sleep nude, and have an expectation of privacy? Anyone else think that train of thought is asinine? Not my job to show her the light, though, that epic fail is all on the fools who raised her “cry wolf when convenient” exhibitionist ass.
Helluva job
. But more importantly, I haven’t the time or energy to waste on the about to be
ex
-member; I have to take care of my brother, the innocent, precious soul she name-called and scared to death.

Rising slowly to stand nose to nose with her, I concentrate on my breathing as a source of center, reminding myself the last thing Conner needs to see is violence. How badly he reacts to it, over-exaggerated even for him, is one of the biggest reasons I suspect foul play that summer I went to camp. If I dust this bitch right now, I’ll make things worse for an already petrified Bubs.

It’s this concern alone that saves her life. Otherwise, I’d have already mopped the floor with her and made her like it. “Cami, what’s wrong with you? He didn’t mean a thing by it.”

“I’m sick of it! I’ve bit my tongue long enough. ‘Nobody upset the retard’ gets old,” she air quotes snottily, testing everything in me not to lower those hands for her. “He’s always spying on me. I almost think he’s faking it just to get a peep show!”

Yes, that is exactly it, diva. He’s been faking it for seven long years in hopes of one day getting a glimpse of your uneven mosquito bites.
Way to go, Cami the Case Cracker!

I literally have to take a minute and simply stare at her for my brain to compute such venomous hatred coming out of nowhere. Cami’s lived on this bus with Conner for months. I’ve even seen her help him with his puzzles a time or two, so the level of animosity pouring from her now is shocking and completely unexpected.

“He was looking for Rhett, you delusional, heartless bitch. He wanted to show off the new fish he got and mixed up the bunks.” My voice cracks and I gulp down the threatening sob, a cumbersome bubble in the middle of my throat. “But luckily, Conner isn’t doomed. He’ll be fine in a few minutes, still an angel.
You
,” I take a step in, crunching her toes under my own and making sure to curl my lip and bare my teeth, “however, are screwed for life. There’s no hope for the kind of evil inside you and I’m only sorry I didn’t see it sooner. Ugly and mean to the core is no way to go through life, Cami. I’d pick the way Conner does it over yours any day of the week. Now pack your shit, next stop is yours.”

“You can’t be serious! You’re kicking me out of the band, whose only chance in hell is me, because I don’t want some freak staring at my tits?”

“Jarrett?” I plead, flexing my fists in and out, praying for willpower I don’t usually possess.

“On it.” He inches himself between us. “Get your shit together, Cami, you’re out. And shut the fuck up while you do it. I don’t hit women, but you call him another name and I’ll damn sure smack a bitch.”

“You can’t just dump me, I don’t have a car! Unbelievable,” she scoffs.

“And your tits
aren’t
.” Jarrett scores one for the whole team. “But we’ll take you where you need to go.
We
have some decorum.”

While he stands guard over her, I move to the front of the bus where Rhett’s corralled Conner. Squatting down in front of him, I pry his hands away from over his face. “Hey, look at me.”

“S-sorry, Sister,” he chokes out in a trembling voice.

“What are you sorry for, huh? Being amazing, kind, and good lookin’? Being a winner? Cause that’s what you are!” He doesn’t answer me, burying his face behind Rhett’s shoulder. “What’s the rule, Conner?” I jostle his leg. “Huh? Tell me the rule.”

Still shaken and ashamed, he doesn’t answer, so I do it for him. “You win and every other motherfucker loses, right?”

“Right,” he grunts from his hiding spot, Rhett rubbing his back and smiling at me.

“Who’s the winner?”

“I’m the winner.” He peeks one eye out at me.
Precious.
How could anyone ever be mean to that face; those huge, innocent eyes, filled with unconditional love, and those sweet dimples?

“You’re damn right you are.” I hop up, grabbing his hand to raise his arm triumphantly in the air. “Ladies and gentlemen, boy and girls, Conner Matthew Carmichael is the winner!”

The boys clap and hoot while Cami rolls her eyes and continues to stuff shit in her duffle. Now Conner beams ear to ear, all again right with the world.

“I’m keeping her fish,” he boasts and we all die laughing.

Oh shit, he was holding the bags of fish!
And now he’s not, surely lost in all the commotion.

Looks like we’re making another stop.

“And I’m getting the top bunk back!” Jarrett chimes in, sick of sleeping on the pull-out.

My boys, so resilient.

After the longest two hours of any of our lives, with suffocating amounts of tension in the air, we finally make it to the rest stop Cami designated. Lucky for her, we’d still been in our homeland of Ohio when she’d lost her shit, so she was able to call someone to meet her a small jaunt down the road. Otherwise, I
would
have offloaded her randomly. At least, I think I would have.

Throwing down his cards in the middle of our four man game of Uno, Conner’s up and ready as soon as we stop and he sees a park out the window.

“You didn’t say Uno,” Rhett teases him as he picks up the scattered cards. “I win.”

“Move,” Cami barks at Conner, trying to shove past him and knocking her case into his hip as she does so.

“I’m not playing with her,” I warn Jarrett in a menacingly low snarl. “Get her the fuck off my bus before you have to alibi my whereabouts at the time of the murder.” I’m truly floored, no idea of the deep-rooted venom she’d hidden. And maybe she’s just having a
categorically
bad day…but I won’t risk her having another one on my bus.

Jarrett hurries to the door, throwing an arm around Conner’s shoulders. “Let’s scoot back, buddy, give Cami room to get off the bus.”

“Where’s Cami going?” He looks around, confused. “Cami, where are you going?”

“The fuck away from you!”

Instinctually, Jarrett has Conner moved back already, thank goodness, ‘cause I’m done, up with a fist full of her hair and my arm reared back as Rhett chuckles from behind me, his arm squeezing around my waist.

“Almost over,” he whispers, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Hold it together long enough for her to get off the bus and you never have to worry about her again. Come on.” He untangles my fingers from her greasy strands and walks backwards, dragging me with him. “Come sit down with me until she’s gone.”

I only do so under duress. He holds me down forcefully on his lap, my head falling against his chest. As relieved as I am that the debacle’s seconds from being over, it’s created a whole new problem. “We have a gig in a few days and no fucking bassist. What’re we gonna do?”

“I can play!” Conner raises his hand, eavesdropping from way over there.

Jarrett nudges him with a shoulder and heads to sit down by us, Cami completely unloaded now. Time for our little family to have a meeting, minus Bruce. He’ll stay put in his captain’s chair, steering clear of any drama.

“You play great, Con.” And he did. He was talented, even wrote some songs way back when. “But we need you on tambourine, remember?” Jarrett lovingly reminds him.

Every show, Uncle Bruce watches over Conner, right off stage, shaking his tambourine like a champ. I feel awful that all he can do now is shake the noisy thing from the wings, but it’s too unpredictable to let him on stage, some crowds nicer than others, venues ranging from large and rowdy to small and accommodating. We adjust accordingly.

“That is right.” His brow wrinkles.
Sweetness.

“Don’t worry, we’ll think of something.” I stand, moving to the door, figuring Cami’s long gone. “You wanna stretch your legs in the fresh air a minute, Bubs?”

A jaunt in the sun is as much to clear my mind as his. I have no idea what we’ll think of, and I’d dragged them all on this misadventure, only to have it now collapsing. Although originally my idea, it’s become all Rhett and Jarrett have. Even if we call it quits today, I have Conner and a fallback nest egg, but the boys were ostracized socially and financially from their shitty “family” the minute they’d stepped onboard. Well, officially, anyway; the groundwork of such was laid
long
before. They’d finally given their parents the excuse they needed to justify their douchery at tea parties and such:
“It’s okay to shit on our kids because they…”

So I can’t just cancel the gig. It may be no big deal to me—this was never about being discovered or getting signed as the next “big thing” in my eyes—but I suspect it’s become exactly that to Rhett and Jarrett.

I need a miracle…preferably one that has some empathy, or at least fakes it with their mouth closed, and can pluck a mean bass.

***

What started as stretching our legs for a minute turned into an afternoon picnic and a game of Frisbee golf. I’m heading to hole five, a par two (the trash can), cleaning up what’s left of our lunch when something, or some
one
rather, catches my eye.

Hello, miracle
.

The glint of the sun reflecting off the guitar slung across his back is what first snags my attention, but the favors he’s doing that pair of Levis is what’s keeping it.